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Who was Cassandra?

In the Iliad, she is described as the loveliest of the daughters of Priam (King of Troy), and gifted with prophecy. The god Apollo loved her, but she spurned him. As a punishment, he decreed that no one would ever believe her. So when she told her fellow Trojans that the Greeks were hiding inside the wooden horse...well, you know what happened.

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September 28, 2016

"We enjoy the bounty of their empire. Free services, easy communication. The ever-expanding convenience of commerce. We leave it to the media companies to worry about the empire’s tribute for this bounty..."

Please read these two recent articles about Facebook and Google. I have never liked FB, but maintain a presence because some of my family and friends only communicate there, and because social media have been necessary for my publishing business. But I am going to be minimizing my FB use even further in the future, and taking further steps to own and control my own presence on the web. Disentangling from Google is much harder, because a lot of what Google does is fantastically useful. However, I'm using a lot of third-party, open-source apps for my phone instead, and will be reviewing all my communications to try to use alternative methods. Do you check the permissions that are requested when you install a new app on your phone? Believe me, you should.

I'd also like to recommend this recent essay from New York Magazine by longtime blogger Andrew Sullivan:

I Used to Be a Human Being Sullivan writes: "An endless bombardment of news and gossip and images has rendered us manic information addicts. It broke me. It might break you, too."

I did notice that Sullivan live-blogged the recent presidential debate, so he's back at it, at least to some extent. But the point I want to make is that we really need to think about how we use the internet and how it is using us.

Thank you for reading this far, and now I'll get off my soap-box. (Wonder how many readers know where that expression came from?)

May 17, 2016

Patricia Bralley, a friend who I met through blogging, recently tagged me on Facebook, asking what I thought of a recent article in the International Business Times by Hossein Derakhshan calling Mark Zuckerberg a hypocrite for claiming that Facebook encourages a global, interconnected society. Derakhshan was imprisoned for his own web activism in Iran between 2008 and 2014; the stakes of using the internet were considerably greater for him than for most of us. Let me first quote a few bits of his article; my own reply to Patricia is below.

"While Zuckerberg laments at walls and admires bridges, the fact is that his Facebook algorithms have created billions of these comfort bubbles that are more isolating than walls. Also, he has destroyed the most powerful bridges that perhaps ever existed in the human history, the hyperlinks...Facebook's desire to keep users inside of it all the time is why it can generate so much advertising money. But that means it provides less and less reasons for anyone to leave its environment, in order to read an article or watch a video.

"It is heart-breaking to see how Facebook has changed the internet into little more than a portal for entertainment."

"Blogs were the best thing that had ever happened on the internet. They democratised writing and publishing – at least in many parts of the world. They gave a voice to many silenced groups and minorities. They connected friends, families, communities, and nations around the world. They encouraged discussions and debates...The World Wide Web was founded on the links, and without links, there won't be a web. Without links the experience of being on the internet will become one of a centralised, linear, passive, inward-looking and homogeneous kind. This is happening already, and despite Zuckerberg's sermon, it is largely Facebook and Instagram who are to be blame for the demise of links, and thereby the death of the open web and all its potentials for a more peaceful world."

Patricia, I'm on Facebook, basically, under protest. I use it for letting people know what's going on with Phoenicia Publishing, and to keep in touch with family and friends who aren't anywhere else, or those who simply don't use email anymore, but it is no substitute for what our blogs used to be. Facebook, in my opinion, has impoverished content, and impoverished community, thoughtfulness, and connection. I keep my blog going, but often wonder if I'm just doing it for myself. I always post a link on FB to a new blogpost, but question whether many readers even leave FB to go to the blog and actually read it or look at the images before "liking" or commenting below the FB post.

Back in March, when The Cassandra Pages turned 13, there were 13 comments on my blog. On the FB link to the same post, there were 12 comments and 60 "likes." Three years earlier, almost all the comments -- 40 or so -- were on my blog itself. I appreciate those "likes" and comments very much, but these statistics represent a big shift in terms of where people are reading, and what they see as their place of communication.

One of my biggest objections is that FB encourages our natural laziness (my own included, unfortunately) - it's so much easier to just hit "like" than to actually engage when we are all inundated with internet information. It also plays into our anxiety about isolation through the falsity of quantitative reassurance. I think, frankly, it's time to start resisting this and to engage more seriously again with the people we care about - yourself included - even if that means fewer "friends," and dealing with the radical concept of less actually being more.

I'd like to add that while my FB interactions are fairly minimal, I have started posting longer-form content on Instagram in connection with certain images. Other people are doing this as well, and we seem to be forming a loose community that reminds me somewhat of blogging. I don't think social media is necessarily devoid of creativity or content, but it takes time and effort to use it differently.

Thanks for asking.

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Readers, what do you think? Is it worth keeping a blog like this going? What about your own? If you've stopped blogging, why was that, and are you happy with social media as a substitute? Do you think there will be a swing back to longer-form content in other places on the web, and a reaction to social media - as some have predicted - or do you think the die is cast?

March 20, 2015

So...The Cassandra Pages turns twelve today. I'm sure this impending birthday was a factor in all the thinking I've been doing about my work and the future. As the 20th of March rolls around I always ask myself if it's time to call it quits with this blogging thing, but no, I'm not ready to do that. If I weren't writing here, I'd be keeping a private journal as I did before the internet, and frankly the blog is a lot more fun, mainly because I know you are out there. Posting more of my artwork over the past couple of years has solved the problem of keeping up my interest without feeling the posts were getting too repetitive, and having a place to share these projects has been a good motivation as well. I greatly appreciate your comments, the many friendships this blog has given me, and the fact that you keep coming back here to see what's happening: and it seems kind of incredible that what began here has been going on and evolving for a dozen years.

However, I decided to celebrate the end of Cassandra's childhood -- we're adolescents now, watch out -- by giving her a vacation. I've never done that in all these years! While I won't be posting new material for the next month, I will probably be putting up some photographs or repeating some favorite posts from the past, so don't go too far away. And I'll be back on these pages, hopefully with new energy and ideas, in the middle of April, when this entire mountain will be melted:

March 18, 2015

During Lent I've been basing the meditation talks, every other week, on the teachings and lives of different teachers from various traditions, and especially how they came to realize their calling to contemplative prayer or meditation. Yesterday evening, the talk was about having "the courage to become more and more silent." I spoke about Merton's life, and how he did exactly this, but not solely for the purpose of silence itself, but to learn to allow his words to come out of that silence. A decade ago, would I have understood what that meant? Yes and no, I suppose - it's an understanding that deepens and grows, through our own failures and embarrassments, through meditation and thinking things through. The talk ended with these words of Merton's:

"There are many declarations made only because we think other people are expecting us to make them. The silence of God should teach us when to speak and when not to speak. But we cannot bear the thought of that silence, lest it cost us the trust and respect of others."

I'm trying recently to deliver my talks more spontaneously, after relying on writing them out and mostly reading them for the past two years. I've opened up the time beforehand a little too, speaking conversationally, making sure I greet everyone personally, keeping it more informal among us, even though we've all just entered a special space which is dark, lit only by a single candle in the center. I wanted to try to connect with the participants more informally and personally, and this seems necessary for me, too, if I am to keep going in this ministry. I'm surprised how immediate the change has been, both ways. The participants are more attentive. They stay longer, and some want to have a word afterwards; I used to ask them to leave in silence after the meditation, but I think it was unnecessary; a gentle quiet prevails anyway. I now feel better about the ministry myself, too: more inclined to continue, more convinced that maybe it really is something I'm supposed to be doing. It may morph into something else, or end - I know that, and that's fine - but for right now, something has shifted in a positive direction.

What does it mean for me to have "the courage to become more and more silent?" Merton never stopped writing, but he learned to differentiate between what was driven by his ego and what was emanating from his higher self, and in the process his reasons for writing changed, as did his expectations for it. I'm not sure Merton was a natural introvert: he was articulate, witty, social, and chatty, although other people could really get on his nerves. He struggled a lot with his pride, with praise and fan mail, and the irony of being a cloistered monk who was famous, talked-about, sought-after. He longed for humility. So this was a long process for him, requiring a lot of solitude, reading, struggle, and self-examination. The silence he found, I think, wasn't empty at all. In fact, it was very fruitful.

Like the quilt top, which is more than half done, I think this line of thinking is a direct outcome of turning away from the online chatter. I don't miss it, and have had no trouble checking in once a day and leaving it at that.

The over-stimulation of the everyday world, online and off, is kind of like caffeine: you don't realize what a strong drug it is unless you give it up for a while, and then you drink a cup and go "whoa!" I've been able to think and focus better without interrupting myself as often during the day -- because that's really what it was: I was drinking the drug, nobody was forcing me. There are times when I want that, and when it's probably helpful, and times to become more silent. That's all. But I do think it requires courage to turn into the silence, to face oneself, to consider change, yet again.

March 17, 2015

Last Wednesday I sat down to write something in my journal, and noticed that it was the 500th page of the file that I had begun in April 2004. Coincidentally, the journal begins with a quote from Merton: on Tuesday night my short talk to the meditation group had been about Merton, too, so he was on my mind.

Here's that journal entry from 2004; later I'll post what I wrote there the other day.

April 26, 2004

In winter the stripped landscape of Nelson County looks terribly poor. We are the ones who are supposed to be poor; well, I am thinking of the people in a shanty next to the Brandeis plant, on Brook Street, Louisville. We had to wait there while Reverend Father was getting some tractor parts. The woman who lived in this place was standing out in front of it, shivering in some kind of rag, while a suspicious-looking anonymous truck unloaded some bootleg coal in her yard. I wondered if she had been warm yet this winter. And I thought of Gethsemani where we are all steamed up and get our meals, such as they are, when meal time comes around, and where I live locked up in that room with incunabula and manuscripts that you wouldn’t find in the home of a millionaire! Can’t I ever escape from being something comfortable and prosperous and smug? The world is terrible, people are starving to death and freezing and going to hell with despair and here I sit with a silver spoon in my mouth and write books and everybody sends me fan-mail telling me how wonderful I am for giving up so much. I’d like to ask them, what have I given up, anyway, except headaches and responsibilities?

Next time I am sulking because the chant is not so good in the choir I had better remember the people who live up the road. The funny thing is, though, they could all be monks if they wanted to. But they don’t. I suppose, somehow, even to them, the Trappist life looks hard!

--Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas, pg 149. An entry from January 8, 1949.

Late winter woods, Vermont, 2004

It’s a grey, dark day here, and when we woke there was rain pelting against the roof. The storm has let up now, and in the bathroom the rainwater is slowing sliding down the incline of the skylight, blurring the silhouettes of the bare-branched treetops. This is the sort of weather that has been depressing me all through the late winter, but today it seems almost indescribably beautiful. It is practically the last day for bare trees; leaf buds are swelling on all the red maples and the honeysuckles are already covered with a cloud of pale green. On the apple tree outside the bedroom window, drops of water hang from the ends of each black twig, daring both gravity and time.

In less than a week, we’re heading to Montreal to live for a month. This will be the longest amount of time I’ve spent in a city in my half-century of life. We’re going as a change from the life we’ve led here, from the house we’ve inhabited for more than 25 years, from the rural countryside, from the particular web of responsibilities and patterns we’ve woven. Besides being urban, Montreal is an international city: proudly and gracefully maintaining its French heritage and a broad ethnic and cultural diversity despite its proximity to the United States and the English-speaking provinces of Canada. It is a mere three-and a half-hours from here, and a world apart.

We’ve been thinking of this month as an experiment. After several years of weekend trips and the occasional week-long stay we want to find out what our commitment to this city really is: how much do we really like living there, and what might that mean for our future? This is what I thought the month was going to be about: practical matters, finding out how we felt, considering some changes and potential investments at this gently teetering point of midlife. Strange, then, that on this wet dark morning I felt, for the first time in several years, a strong call to contemplation. Could it be that part of this journey might be a sort of retreat, bizarre though it seems to retreat to a city? And yet I feel the call so clearly, bidding me to use the coming time and change of place not for distraction and escape, or merely for outward life decisions, but to learn something inner and as yet unrevealed.

For those who believe in God and believe, further, that She has a sense of humor, consider the irony of moving a writer - especially one steeped in the ultimate contemplativeness of rural Vermont life, complete with clapboard-clad house and vegetable garden, and a pervasive silence punctuated only by bird and cricket - to the bustle and endless distraction of a city of three million souls for the purpose of contemplation. Funny, even preposterous. But that’s what may be happening. I’ve been on this winding, unpredictable, and largely dusty spiritual path for long enough now to recognize the changes and imperatives when they come - and for the most part, they have come like this, of the blue.

What immediately fits is the fact that contemplative solitude, for me, is actually easier to find in the city. Having lived my entire life in the fishbowls of small towns, where I cannot step outside my door or buy a bag of carrots without running into someone who knows me, the anonymity of the city is a huge relief. It creates a sense of freedom that is impossible for me here. Perhaps because of living so many years in the country, close to nature, solitude -- for me -- is not dependent on silence, but on being removed from the obligation to talk, interact, and plan. And yet, being a social creature and a moderate extrovert, and knowing that my husband – the opposite - likes to take off for long periods of photographic exploration on his own, I’ve been a little worried about having to deal with too much solitude during an entire month of urban living. “Use it,” I hear now. “It’s a gift.”

This morning there’s much that I don’t understand. Is this simply an emotional reaction to the Merton I’ve been reading – the kind of excited, creative impulse I often feel when reading or seeing something that inspires me, but which afterwards reveals itself as just that – a kind of steamed-up excitement that quickly evaporates when I steps out into the daily reality of life? Or is it the real thing, which, if I follow it out, will lead me somewhere I’m meant to go? And in that case, what was that decision to pick up Merton during Holy Week? How do we ever know these things? All I know is that certain books have leapt off shelves into my hands for years, and changed me, and changed the course of my life and my thinking. What I suspect is that in this case, choosing to read this particular volume of Merton again was a sign that I was entering into a psychological place that was receptive to contemplation. What I didn’t do was connect it to the upcoming travel. And whether that happens or not depends on my assent to the invitation.

March 07, 2015

It's not like I don't have plenty of work to do. So why was it that yesterday I gave into the increasingly insistent urges and began a new quilt?

It's Lent. It's still mid-winter, and freezing cold, and monochromatic up here. Those are reasons for craving color, for sure, but there are lots of ways to get more color in your life - like wearing hot pink, which I'm doing today too; yesterday was orange. But no, it's more than that. It occurred to me last night that this is a kind of longing-for-spring quilt: green for leaves, roses and reds for flowers, brown for earth. When I was pulling out the fabrics, all that was subliminal.

I feel better when I have something like this to work on, a little bit at a time. It's amazing to me how much I look forward to it each day. Sewing, or bookbinding, or the actual process of cutting relief blocks or making prints all do this for me, while knitting, on the other hand, tends to be too repetitive for me; I like the planning but not the doing, so much -- but that's just me. Painting can be quite difficult, demanding, and often fraught, like serious writing. Maybe I just like the process of making practical things - real objects - without a client or deadline or the prospect of submission looming in the background. Maybe it's an escape from, or antidote to, other kinds of work which generally involve commitments to others or to something more demanding within myself. Whatever it is, work that involves a lot of "process" seems to be therapeutic, calming, spiritually and emotionally helpful. I realize that I've turned away from this too often in recent years, as a way to rest and recharge.

This has also been the first week of an experiment: I've gone off Facebook for at least the rest of Lent, not so much as "fast" or giving up of something pleasurable -- I wanted to see if I felt more focused without it. After one week, I can say that the answer is definitively yes. I check FB once a day, in the late evening, and don't spend more than five minutes doing a quick look at any messages and notifications. Unless something really needs a response -- a friend's father died a few days ago, for instance, and I didn't see that until today -- I'm trying not to comment or "like" very much at all, and I'm not posting anything but links to new posts here. We'll see how it feels after several weeks, but so far, I don't miss it. I like the way my mind feels without the chattering input, and there are some other aspects of self-perception that are beginning to be more apparent. More on that as I, ahem, piece it together.

August 13, 2014

I've been away from Twitter and, somewhat less so, FB, for a number of days. That was partly a choice and partly because I've just been working hard and haven't had time to spend on much else. Today I took a look, and saw that the scrolls -- no surprise -- are dominated by people's comments on the death of Robin Williams, and a whole pile of posts and advice about depression, mental illness, and suicide.

I don't want to take anything away from the sincerity of people's sadness and shock, or the value of focussing on mental health issues. It's just clear that this is the latest "heartfelt-concern-of-the-moment." And I wonder if it's actually symbolic of what makes many people in our culture feel insignificant and depressed.

We've all become accustomed to the online empathy curve, in which there's an outpouring of emotion when a disaster or death occurs, everyone jumping on the tear-and-tribute-filled bandwagon for a few days, until the next event occurs, or everyone has had their say and, like sated guests at a Roman banquet, simply fall asleep, unable to consume or spew any more. In some ways, it seems like the social networks are made for this sort of group catharsis.

Woody Allen's "To Rome With Love" pokes exaggerated fun at the cult of celebrity when an insignificant clerk (played perfectly by the wonderful Roberto Benigni) is suddenly pursued by a huge crowd of reporters who want to know every detail of his mundane life, from how he butters his toast to how he spilled the coffee that morning on his tie. He becomes an instant celebrity. Beautiful women suddenly want to sleep with him; he gets the best seats in all the restaurants; a chauffeur, a new office; strangers come up to him in the street wanting his autograph. This goes on for several days, alternately delighting him and driving him nuts, until, just as suddenly, he's deserted and discarded when the flock of reporters sees someone else on the street who looks "even more fascinating."

Most of us, of course, are not celebrities at all. I realize that I'm able to look in on the social networks, and choose to turn away or not, because I'm fairly healthy, busy, and have a lot of support and love and affirmation in my life. But there are a lot of people out there who don't have that. By the same token, when I pay attention to my emotional state, I realize that it isn't particularly good for me to spend too much time there; I see how manipulative a medium it is, and how it plays with some of my basic human fears, and desires for attention and "success." I can't see how a medium (perfectly reflecting the culture behind it) that avidly picks up and then discards real human suffering in a matter of days, and quantifies our participation with "likes" and "favorites" can be healthy or helpful for people with low self-esteem, and/or mental and emotional fragility. Nothing I say is going to change anything about that, but I feel the need to note it on this day when we're steeped in talk of depression. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I find too much participation in the social networks quite depressing, in and of itself.

Many people have found a virtual support group or online community around particular issues, and that's one of the web's great virtues: I value my online friendships hugely too, and I do feel supported by them: especially by those people whom I've actually met in person. Those relationships and conversations, whether via email or online groups or on blogs, feel deeper and far less transient than on the social networks, of which I guess I've been a pretty consistent critic, as well as a user.

But when night falls, or the days go by one after another, and we actually realize we're alone, how do we cope in our real worlds, in our everyday lives? Are we building friendships next door, is there someone who can come over or meet us in the park, put an arm around our shoulder or lend an ear when we're hurting? Are we there for them, too? Are we involved in our communities, in organizations that bring us into contact with other people? Do we know our neighbors? Because we are embodied creatures living in real places with other embodied creatures; we have eyes that see far more and communicate greater depths of meaning than any word written on a computer screen can convey; we are complex beings whose silence, as we sit next to an empathetic friend, is full and rich, while our computers and phones simply turn on and off.

May 29, 2014

A huge thank-you to everyone who took the Cassandra Pages reader survey over the past week. (It's still open, and if you haven't responded and would like to, I'm very interested in hearing from you!)

So far 69 people have responded, which seems like a large number to me. This blog has about 180 average daily page views, and I really don't know how many people read it per week anymore. Whatever it is, this seems like a high percentage of respondents.

As for the results, here's what you said.

The early responses were, predictably, from the people who use feed readers and came from social networking sites (in my case, that would only be FB and Twitter), but over time the blogroll/bookmarks took over and ended up being half the respondents. In the "other" category were quite a few people who just type in the URL. These results indicate to me that plenty of people still use traditional ways of reading and accessing information online.

Again, I was surprised: I thought fewer people were using their computers to read blogs. Since this was a "check all that apply" question, nearly everyone still uses a computer to read, even if about a quarter of them also use a tablet, and 18% a phone.

Another surprise! I was worried that I was posting too much about art, but almost everyone said these were among their favorite posts. Places/travel came in second, with spirit/ideas, people/stories/memoir, and literature/books/music pretty much tied. I guess the original Cassandra Pages description of "arts and culture, place and spirit" has been pretty consistent and is still why people come here.

Wow! A quarter of the readers who responded have never commented, but cared enough to fill out the survey. I appreciate hearing from you this way very much, and if you never want to comment again, that's just fine.

Makes perfect sense.

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In the optional "feedback" field, I received 39 personal responses -- also unexpected, and for which I'm very grateful. Many of them were about technical blog matters, and the overwhelming recommended platform was WordPress. But there were also some general comments about the blog, and a number from people who said they hadn't ever commented. Here are a few favorites:

"Blog continues to delight and inform me. It is the only blog I still read from way back when I discovered blogs."

"I continue to read this blog because of the decency, depth, and generosity of the entries. The good humor doesn't hurt either."

"Love the variety and the art and MTL especially. Big fan- sorry for not commenting ever!"

"Cassandra Pages is one of the blogs I've read the longest, so it has sentimental value as well as intellectual and artistic value to me."

"Love the blog and your home town in Canada, despite the extremely long winters you seem to get!" (from the UK)

"You are awesome and should you decide to move, I will follow you to the ends of the interwebs."

"Change the technology as much as you like, but never the still small voice."

I've always felt I had the best readers in the blogosphere -- knowing you're out there makes all of this worthwhile, including the work that will be involved if I ever pack up and move. Thanks again to all of you!

May 23, 2014

Grrr! TypePad has been down again today, for the third time this month. This outage wasn't nearly as long, but it's still both frustrating and disconcerting: if enough people jump ship, the company will be shakier than it already is, and could go under, which would be a lot worse. I've been quite happy with TypePad for a long time, but am considering my options. Moving a blog this big would be daunting and time-consuming, but I may have to do it anyway as a longterm plan to protect the content.

As I consider what to do, I'm curious: it would help me a lot if regular readers could let me know how you usually come here: via a feed reader, via your own blogroll, via social networking sites, via a bookmark, or some other way, and also whether you read the blog on your computer, your phone, or a tablet. If you've got a second, could you fill out the poll below? Thanks a lot! please be sure to click "DONE", at the bottom, when you're finished. Have a great weekend!

April 23, 2014

TypePad was the victim of a DDoS attack last weekend (maybe perpetrated by the mother of all those chocolate Easter bunnies) and ended up being down for about six days. If you tried to visit here and got an "unknown domain" message, that was why. It was certainly frustrating, and a bit scary, for those of us who use this blogging platform. On the other hand, I've been using their service for eleven years and have never had a problem before, so I'm not about to jump ship. There are some questions about how long Typepad will remain as a viable platform; this is the bigger "if" for me, but the work involved in switching to WordPress is pretty daunting for someone like me who has such an extensive archive. For the time being, I'll sit tight, but consider the options.

Meanwhile, back to posting -- coming soon, photos of Easter at the cathedral, and spring valiantly trying to arrive.